


Like A Steel

by ninamonday



Category: TWICE (Band), 방탄소년단 | Bangtan Boys | BTS
Genre: (no leverage knowledge required), :), Alternate Universe, Alternate Universe - Leverage Fusion, Con Artists, F/F, Heist, Implied/Referenced Abuse, M/M, Minor Violence, Multi, NO rape, No murder, and cool girls, on a bad man, one murder joke, wreaking vengeance
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-09-30
Updated: 2019-09-30
Packaged: 2020-10-12 23:42:34
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 6,669
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/20572877
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/ninamonday/pseuds/ninamonday
Summary: Park Jihyo runs a team of elite con artists, criminals, and fixers who solve problems that justice won't, and a party at Jackson Wang's mansion is a great place to commit a little light crime.





	Like A Steel

**Author's Note:**

> Welcome to my first fic for the Twice fandom! Thank you so much for reading and to the Party of Destiny organizers for bringing us together for this fest <3
> 
> This is a standalone story, meant to feel like an "episode" in a series, though I may write more episodes in the future. I'd love to know what you think of it.
> 
> This is not exactly a Leverage AU but I did take a lot of inspiration from that show, and I think it is a good barometer for the level of the warnings here. I would say the tone is overall light, but there is a little physical violence and reference to sexual harassment and secret camera pictures. If you have any questions about warnings, please get in touch in the comments or on [twitter](https://www.twitter.com/ninamonday) or [curiouscat](https://curiouscat.me/ninamonday). I'm happy to give any spoilers or info.

A party at Jackson Wang's Hong Kong mansion is the perfect place to relax—the relative privacy of a personal home with a gate and grounds is a relief from the scrutiny most of his guests are used to. That also makes it a great place to commit a little light crime.

The house is just astonishing inside, a palace of golden marble and sparkling crystal. Jihyo leads her crew through the massive front door into what might be called a great room, a single space bigger than even the most luxurious apartments in Seoul. On the far side, a series of French doors open onto a veranda and a view of a glittering fountain on the lawn.

If there’s usually furniture here, it’s been cleared out to make room for a DJ and dance floor and several small bars, along with a satin- and sequin-clad crowd of the prettiest young things from seven countries. All the important idols, actors, and other celebrities are in town for an awards show, and a crowd of entertainers and financiers, con artists and politicians, new money moguls and chaebol fuckboys, minor stars and major clout-chasers—anybody whose jewels or secrets are expensive enough—have followed like a school of mismatched feeder fish trailing a shark. Jihyo and the girls won’t be the only ones with an agenda here tonight.

She makes her eyes astonished Os as she gazes around the house—it isn’t hard to look impressed, but she’s not taking in the opulence. She’s focused on the practical details, making sure the staircases and doors match up with the blueprints they studied earlier and looking for evidence of security or surveillance. There are several men standing around the edges who give off that stoic, meat-faced security guard vibe, but men are easy. There’s relatively little evidence of electronic surveillance, much harder to fool.

"All set?" Jihyo asks.

"Let's get this wrapped before they start serving the cheap champagne," Sana says.

Jihyo nods and everyone splits. Momo, in red satin, and Sana, in pink lace, head toward the center of the dance floor hand-in-hand, striding to catch attention. Everyone else is party-appropriate but unmemorable in neutrals or black. Nayeon stays with Jeongyeon, who has the key role tonight. She has her equipment hidden in the cutest leather Balenciaga backpack, shining against the matte softness of her silk dress. They’re off to find somewhere hidden to work. Chaeyoung and Dahyun fade into the edges of the crowd.

A tiny horror pops in Jihyo’s chest as she counts them off and comes up two short, instinct firing off even as her conscious mind is reminding her that Tzuyu and Mina have their own mission back in Seoul, that they’re not supposed to be here. She shakes her head at her own nonsense and starts her pass of the room.

Jihyo smiles and asks everyone specific questions about conversations she’s had with them before; she gives hugs and holds hands. This is important, so she did brush up with a copy of the guest list on the flight to Hong Kong, but it isn’t hard for her even without the extra study. Jihyo’s never had a head for numbers or trivia, but people? She remembers every hope and flaw, every story, every mistake.

Jackson, both an old-money heir and a new money tech guru, is standing just inside the doors to the veranda. He’s wearing a black suit like he was sewn into it, champagne in his hand and three women in jewel-tone dresses at his sides. Jihyo launches herself into a hug. “Jackson, baby! Any news from Brazil?”

“Not a word,” he says. (She already knew that—she was just reminding him he owes her a favor.) “How about you, staying out of trouble?”

“Oh, you know me.” Jihyo winks.

Jackson laughs nervously. He’s so nice, for a guy—generous and harmless and properly scared of her. Just how she likes them.

She goes back to mingling and checks her texts. Sana found the mark first, and Nayeon says they have a good spot on the east side of the room. Jihyo makes her way over—not in a rush, still greeting everyone she knows and leaving a good impression like fairy dust all over the room. A group of the girls are holding up the wall next to an elegant painted screen hiding a speaker. The noise and the furniture make solid cover—Jeongyeon stands halfway behind the screen’s edge, Nayeon blocking her the rest of the way in.

Jihyo drapes her arm around Chaeyoung’s shoulder, loose and friendly. Chaeyoung nods across the room, and Jihyo sees the mark. Sun Kwangjo, a tall and fit forty-four in a shiny pinstriped suit, is standing on the edge of the dance floor. He watches with what Jihyo would call a shark’s flat gaze if frivolous metaphors weren’t beneath her dignity.

Sun is a real estate executive who operates hotels, nightclubs, and restaurants in Seoul. He has them tripwired to catch secrets like little animals in a forest, and he does as much business in blackmail as he does in entertainment. One of his victims found her way to HQ who forwarded her case to Jihyo, and two months later, the girls are here to bring him down.

As their intel suggested, he has a young woman on his arm and a body man standing behind his left shoulder. The guard has a flute of the champagne Jackson’s party staff is passing around, which makes the next step easy. This is a good night. Jihyo can feel everything sliding into place. 

She texts, _ Momo and Dahyun. _

The center of the dance floor opens up into a circle and there’s Momo at its heart. She bounces forward and taps the shoulder of—oh—that’s Jung Hoseok, the hottest choreographer in kpop. In a way that’s lucky, because Jihyo couldn’t have asked for a better distraction than a Momo/J-Hope dance-off. But it’s a little problem, because if he’s here, then maybe his friends are too….

Anyway, it works. The dance floor draws everyone’s attention. Sun steps forward to watch Momo move, the guard’s focus goes to him, and when Dahyun walks up with a new drink on a tray, he’s watching his client and doesn’t even glance at her as she takes the champagne flute out of his hand and replaces it with a fresh one.

Dahyun walks away and Jihyo’s the one who keeps an eye on the guard. He sips the champagne, doesn’t react. Sips again. Chaeyoung opens her hand, and Jihyo slaps her own palm down on it in a low five.

They have to move around a little so they don’t look odd. Dahyun finally takes pity on Jaebum and lets him, nervous and delighted, lead her to dance, and Jihyo loops her elbow through Nayeon’s and does a pass around the floor. They count off—there are Momo and Dahyun on the dance floor, Chaeyoung walking with Sana out to the veranda, Jeongyeon leaving her backpack on the floor with convincing carelessness as she gets a drink at the nearest bar. (Then right back to the backpack, which, of course, she was watching the whole time.)

When they make it back around to their spot by the screen, the guard is rubbing his stomach and looking distressed. Right on time. As he touches his boss’ elbow and then disappears to the bathroom—where he will be all night; Dahyun knows her way around many kinds of poison, but laxatives are a gruesome specialty—Jihyo takes her phone out of her clutch again and texts _ Chaeyoung. _

She and Sana stumble back through the dance floor looking drunk, caught somewhere between holding each other up and pulling each other down. Sana peels off and throws herself into Momo’s arms—right in the center of the dance floor, again. They attract a lot of attention in those bright dresses, Sana’s squealing giggles rising above the thumping music.

Chaeyoung slips toward the edge of the floor more quietly and, still stumbling, runs right into Sun’s chest. She looks up into his eyes with a smile, and he touches the front of her shoulder as she runs a hand down his side. 

He watches her walk away. Chaeyoung catches Jihyo’s eye and Jihyo shakes her head; Chaeyoung sways toward the bathroom instead of coming their way. After Sun has turned back to the dance floor, Chaeyoung checks again and Jihyo nods.

Chaeyoung passes Sun's phone to Jeongyeon. They all crowd around and look down, smiling like they’re looking at something fun on the phone, some secret joke, but it’s just a loading bar as Jeongyeon plugs in an extraction device and downloads his data. Nayeon holds a tablet up for her too.

“So gross, my poor baby.” Nayeon pouts and rubs the spot on Chaeyoung’s chest where he touched her, like she’s got a stain. 

“He’s drinking the champagne but he smells like whiskey, too,” Chaeyoung reports. 

Momo and Sana run up—Sana throws her arms around Nayeon and Chaeyoung, and Momo puts herself right between Jeongyeon and the dance floor. They must have been visible. Jeongyeon unplugs the extraction device and, without looking up, thrusts Sun’s phone at Jihyo. She’s frowning between the device and the tablet and, okay, Jeongyeon frowns a lot. But this one goes on too long, and as Jihyo’s about to ask what’s wrong, Jeongyeon looks up and says flatly, “He’s here.”

###

The signs of nervousness pass around the circle (Nayeon bites her lip, Chaeyoung makes a fierce little frown, Momo’s hand comes firmly to Sana’s back), but Jihyo just starts thinking. Sana watches, and she already has her hand out for the phone when Jihyo hands it to her. "Kill some time.”

Sana holds sultry eye contact and pops an air-kiss to make Jihyo laugh. To get back to Sun, she takes a long path around through the dance floor, getting lost in the crowd before she lets him find her again. She feels the writhe of sweaty bodies, desire running through the crowd like a current.

“Oops!” she squeaks, stumbling into him as if her heel has slipped out from underneath her. “You dropped this.”

She presents his phone in two hands like a supplicant making an offering. He starts as he takes it, patting his Chaeyoung-emptied pockets and glancing around for his missing bodyman. 

“Careful,” Sana purrs. “You look like a real businessman. You probably have all kinds of important... “ She trails off, giggles, shakes a fall of wavy bleached hair over her shoulder so the air rushes with sugary pink perfume. “Emails? And stuff?”

Sun’s gaze refocuses on her, and he smiles with his teeth. “Yes, it can get very busy. But never too busy to enjoy a pleasant night with such lovely company.”

Sana’s a little worried about the girl he’s with making it hard to steal him—a fortune-hunter, Sana guesses, which is a hustle she absolutely respects but can’t have in her way right now. The girl, though, just stares at Sana with open disgust and some confusion, too, as she melts back a few steps. Like she wants the crowd to swallow her up, like she’s ready to lose this dude to Sana but she’s too afraid to dip.

Sana _ knew _ this guy was a cretin, but that is even grosser than she expected. Anger is pure and hot and clean and it lights in her like a fire. She channels its brightness into a sparkling little grin, putting her hand on Sun’s revolting elbow and turning him a few degrees away from his date, more parallel to her. He moves easily, the whole thing is almost too easy.

“Good, it’s not good to work too hard,” Sana says. “It’s important to… hmm, what’s the word?” She says _ relax _ in Japanese.

Sun quirks an eyebrow and repeats in Korean.

“Ah!” Sana parrots it back and pouts. “I’ve been trying to learn, but it’s so hard. I’ll never get a job in Seoul without it, though.”

His eyes flash like _ got her _ and Sana thinks, _ got him. _ She turns him around more so she can make eye contact with Jihyo over his shoulder. Jihyo looks almost apologetic as she sends the signal, brushing a hand across her collarbone to push hair off her shoulder, but there’s nothing to be sorry for. Sana doesn’t care. She’d do a lot worse to bring this guy down than let him bullshit her about all the connections he can give her back in Seoul for another few minutes and then lead her up Jackson’s grand waterfall of a staircase toward the bedrooms.

There’s a security guard posted at the top of the staircase but he just nods sleepily at them, barely looking up from a phone. After a turn, the hall is empty, lined with so many doors it’s more like a hotel than a home. There’s a blue silk tie hanging off the last doorknob at the end of the hall—someone’s shy, that’s cute.

Sun turns and shoves Sana against the wall hard enough that she’d kick him in the balls if it was worth the trouble. Instead, she rolls her eyes and sighs out her boredom.

That reaction makes Sun hesitate for one second, which is three quarters of a second more than Momo needs to drag him back and get a syringe in his neck—the liquid inside is a deep cherry-pink, Dahyun’s signature, and viscous as Momo pumps it down. Sun tries to flail but she’s holding him firm around the chest, and he goes limp as his eyes roll back in his head.

Momo relaxes as his tension does and Sun droops forward. “Ew!” Sana whines. “Don’t drop him on _ me.” _

Momo yanks him back again and glares sternly. “It wouldn’t be a problem if you weren’t so close.”

“Oh, yeah, that’s my favorite part of the job.” Sana gives her an even bigger eye-roll than she gave Sun as she grabs his feet and helps Momo drag his body into the nearest bedroom and toss him onto the bed. 

Sana locks the doorknob from the inside before she pulls the door closed, and she takes the pink ribbon choker from her neck and ties it around the doorknob the way the person down the hall did. When she finishes, she looks up to find Momo still glaring.

“Oh, really,” Sana says. “You can’t possibly be _ mad.” _

Momo’s stern expression gets a little poutier. “I just… worry.”

“I can do my job.” Sana takes out her phone and swipes opens her messages. “And if I do mess up, I trust you to do yours, too.”

She texts the rest of the girls the update—what room Sun is in, how it’s marked, and that the girl he was with may need help, too—and just as she’s hitting send, Momo appears under her ducked face and fits her mouth softly against Sana’s. Her lipstick tastes like vanilla and her tongue tastes like champagne.

Momo is blushing as she stands back, and Sana doesn’t stop the wicked grin from glowing across her face. Momo sighs, rolls her eyes like she’s fooling anyone. “What are we going to do with you?”

Their phones, both silent, flash together. Jihyo’s telling them to kill a little more time upstairs because the complication Jeongyeon found hasn’t been resolved. Sana smiles even wickeder. Momo’s still blushing and huffing, but when Sana takes her hand, she follows where Sana leads.

###

Walking into Sun’s building in Gangnam shouldn’t be a challenge—Tzuyu has a lifted security badge and Jeongyeon has been in control of the cameras for weeks, so that no one will be able to trace a hack to tonight—but Mina manufactures a distraction, just in case.

She stumbles into the lobby acting drunk and makes those wide, innocent eyes at the security guard. He jumps up like a slobbering dog to get his hands on her as he moves her back toward the door. She drags him around so his back is to the scanner gates that block off the elevator bay, and when the sensible business heels of Tzuyu’s disguise start clacking across the tile, he doesn't turn.

Mina makes brief eye contact over his shoulder, a smile warming the corners of her eyes. 

They’ve spent a lot of the prep for this job marveling at how heavily weighted Sun’s security is to thugs instead of systems. It’s good for the job, for the girl they’re trying to help, but Tzuyu still finds the whole thing boring. She holds out hope there will be something interesting in Sun’s office.

She keeps her face ducked low over her phone as she rides the elevator and walks down the hall—Jeongyeon will wipe her off the footage but there’s no reason to be sloppy. 

She waits to put her gloves on until she gets to the office door. The code is his birthday—fool—and nothing is locked once she gets inside. First, she drops a USB drive into the computer. There’s a stack of forged files in the brown YSL tote she brought to match her navy skirt suit, and she tucks them into the cabinet behind the desk, alphabetizing neatly. 

A large, generic painting of a pastel landscape hangs on one wall, looking tempting and suspicious. Tzuyu checks the corners, smirking when it swings open for her—and positively grinning when she sees the safe in the wall. It’s an old-fashioned combination lock, a spinning dial. She never sees these anymore—they’re barely safes at all, really, not secure enough to be worth the money they cost.

But this is also the first kind of safe her mother taught her to crack when she was a little girl, and there’s nothing in high-tech security as sensual their tactile give. If Tzuyu was a gambling woman—she emphatically is not—she’d bet that it’s his birthday again, and this safe doesn’t have the technology to lock her out for failed attempts. But she doesn’t try.

She takes a thin stethoscope from a pouch in her bag and leans close to the lock, cheek-first, wooing it to whisper its secrets in her ear. She presses the stethoscope to the steel like it’s a warm body and holds her breath as she twists the combination lock slowly to the left.

The cylinders slide into place with a click like the wet heart of a kiss. She turns the lock to the right until she hears it again, the turn and turn like a kiss, too. The door falls open as soft as a sigh, sending a shivery pleasure down Tzuyu’s spine. Tzuyu’s knowing smile is between herself and the lock.

There are four big hard drives inside the safe. Tzuyu wrinkles her nose as she unloads them. The cash is marked, so she leaves it, and she pets a heavy diamond pendant on a platinum chain sadly before she leaves it, too.

And she takes the last thing she brought out of her elegant tote—a couple of tidily wrapped kilo bricks of cocaine—to stack them exactly where the hard drives were.

The stolen and secret photos on those drives, Sun’s blackmail material, ought to be worthy evidence to send him to jail or whatever other ruin a scumbag like him deserves. But that’s the world as it ought to be, not the world as it is, so it’s the team’s job to lay a new trail of the kind of evidence that will get him convicted of a crime.

She closes the safe with a gentle caress. She’s a little hazy with the thrill of that safe, but she shakes it off and gets back to work—grabbing the USB from the computer and running a cloth over everything she touched, even with the gloves.

There’s a service elevator that leads down to a back entrance, and Tzuyu takes that path instead of going past the security guard again. Mina’s waiting in the loading dock behind the wheel of a black sedan, and Tzuyu sinks happily into the passenger's seat, the buzzy adrenaline of a successful break-in fading to tingles all over her. 

“Any trouble?” Mina asks as she pulls into the road.

“Of course not.” Tzuyu turns to toss her bag into the back—and screams, which makes Mina scream and swerve into the next lane, and Tzuyu screams again as a passing car honks at them.

“Oh my god, stop shouting!” Mina takes a hand off the wheel to slap at Tzuyu as she steadies the car in their lane.

“What _ is _ all that?” Tzuyu asks.

“Just, like, a few kilos of C-4,” Mina says, pouting defensively.

Tzuyu peeks in the back again. The whole seat is laden with explosives. She could have taken down the entire office building. “Why would you possibly need that much C-4?”

“Well, better to have it and not need it, you know,” Mina says. She turns onto the highway. Tzuyu shakes her head and keeps the tote of stolen hard drives in her lap.

They've been feeding the police tips from different sources for weeks, and now there's one more piece of evidence she needs to plant—incriminating photos of Sun accepting blackmail money. She has a burner account ready to email the photos to Detective Min Yoongi, the police officer the crew collectively hates the least, but Jihyo texted her a few minutes ago from Hong Kong. _Hold. We have a problem here._

###

Nayeon holds Jeongyeon’s hand and sidles up behind her shoulder to smile sweetly at the security guard at the top of the stairs. He gives an intrigued eyebrow and doesn’t stop them from turning down the hall.

Jeongyeon, on a mission, pulls away to stalk like a jaguar as soon as they’re out of the guard’s sight, and Nayeon catches her stupid hand floating after and yanks it back, rubbing her palm on her skirt.

Sana’s pink choker is crumpled on the floor under one of the doorknobs. That’s not how Sana said she left it—she said she tied it. Which means someone went in after her and left it like that, messy and obvious. A taunt.

Jeongyeon makes a wordless huff of outrage and snatches it off the floor before she opens the door. (Unlocked, even though Sana said she locked it from the inside.)

It’s a guest room, beautifully appointed in blue and gold silk but completely impersonal. Sun is on the bed in disarray, his suit a mess and a bruise on the side of his head, and the rest of the room is empty, but Jeongyeon stalks over to the closet and throws the door open.

Park Jimin grins up at her, an angel’s smile on his lovely little face, from his spot curled up on the floor. He has two phones and a switchblade in his lap. “Hi. Cute backpack.”

Jeongyeon almost screams, strangled and furious in frustration, and Nayeon touches her back. “The guard,” she says quietly, and then more clearly, “Hello, Jimin-ssi. What are you doing here?”

“Emptying Sun’s bank account,” Jimin says, gesturing with one of the phones in his hand. “Well, actually, I just finished that. Now I’m using his money to buy Taehyungie a sweater.”

Jeongyeon turns to look directly in Nayeon’s eyes. Her voice trembles with the effort of keeping it under control as she says, “Please. I never ask for anything. Please. Let me kill him.”

Jimin laughs and Nayeon gives him her sternest glare. (It’s not very stern, and he doesn’t stop smirking.)

Jeongyeon is kidding, Nayeon is sure. Like ninety-five percent sure. Park Jimin isn’t a threat, he’s just annoying. His only code is loyalty to his own friends, and he bends ethical rules with enough vigor that they sometimes snap. But the thing is, if Jeongyeon were to attack him just because she finds him annoying, _ her _ strict ethics would be compromised, which would remove her authority attack him… it’s almost interesting, Nayeon thinks, like a philosophy problem.

Jeongyeon doesn’t really have the patience for philosophy.

“I could _ lightly _ maim him,” Jeongyeon suggests hopefully.

“Don’t be mad,” he whines. “You want a necklace? I’ll buy you one with Sun’s money. We’re on the same team.”

“We are absolutely not,” Jeongyeon says crisply. 

“You were here for Sun?” Nayeon asks.

Jimin nods. “I was just going to rough him up a little, but I saw Momo dancing and I figured you girls probably had a whole plan to frame him for money laundering or something. So, come on.” He waves Sun’s phone expectantly at Jeongyeon. “You can go in and clean up my tracks.”

Jeongyeon glares so hard the steam is almost visible, pouring out of her ears. But, well—they do have a whole plan to frame him for money laundering, and Tzuyu is breaking into his office to plant the physical evidence and tip off the police _ tonight, _ so it has to get done. The cops need to find watertight evidence of crimes tomorrow, not a half-botched frame job. Nayeon meets Jeongyeon’s eye with an apologetic shrug.

Jeongyeon sighs with her entire soul and snatches the phone out of Jimin’s hand. She plops down on the floor next to him and unzips her backpack, pulling out a laptop.

“That is really so cute, what brand is that?” Jimin reaches for the backpack and Jeongyeon smacks his hands away. He laughs again.

Nayeon gets her own kit out of the backpack and pulls on a pair of latex gloves. She wipes Sun’s face and hands down with rubbing alcohol as she checks him out. He has the mark she expected on his neck from the syringe, but Momo didn’t mention anything about this bruise on the side of his head.

“Did you rough him up, too?” Nayeon asks.

Jimin shrugs in a studied nonchalance that’s hiding some truer emotion—shame would be Nayeon’s first guess if she thought Park Jimin knew how to feel it. Anger, she realizes a second later. “Your girls had him down already,” Jimin says, “but I gave him a few kicks for luck.”

Her eyebrows jump. She turns back to the body on the bed and combs over his suit—and yes, there’s a piece of bleach-fried pink hair. Messy. She lifts it with a flourish. “Jimin-ssi. This is how people end up in jail.”

Jimin smirks without looking up from his phone. “I’m not going to jail. How about a Cartier panther, Jeongyeon-ah? Looks just like you.”

Jeongyeon scoffs.

Maybe it’s true that Jimin probably isn’t going to end up in jail—rich men hardly ever do—but Nayeon doesn’t know him to be this sloppy with his safety, anyway. “This one must have really made you mad,” she says.

Jimin glances up. She doesn’t really expect to hear his secrets—she wouldn’t tell him hers—but his face gets hard and he answers, after all. “He was trying to blackmail my friends. Two men. He has pictures of them together, in a hotel.”

Jeongyeon pauses in her typing to look at him sidelong. Jimin lifts his chin.

“I see,” Nayeon says, because she does, but she doesn’t pour out a bunch of sympathy he didn’t ask for. She thinks a few steps ahead. “Do we need to debrief your friends, too?”

Jimin shakes his head. “They never saw the messages, I intercepted them. I don’t want them to worry about shit like this.”

Jeongyeon keeps typing. “Maybe they'd be safer if they worried a little. In a hotel without checking for cameras?” She clicks her tongue. “Amateur.”

“Yeah, well,” Jimin says, in that tone of disagreeing even though he knows she isn’t wrong. “They’re dumb, probably, but they’re _ my _dummies.”

Nayeon understands where they’re both coming from. “The girl who asked us for help with Sun,” she says. “He had pictures of her in the shower. Not doing anything scandalous or strange, just… in the shower. Why should that ruin her life?”

Jimin nods. “It’s fucked up.” 

And that is... unsatisfying. Nayeon doesn’t know what she was imagining he might say to disparage or correct the record of men, but she’ll still hold him responsible for not saying it. 

She turns away. 

Jeongyeon sniffs and says, “We don’t relate to you.”

Jimin laughs again. “Okay. I love you girls, it’s a party every time. You should give him a kick, Nayeon-ssi. It feels great.”

“We don’t work like you, Park Jimin-ssi,” Jeongyeon says.

“So formal,” Jimin says. “Don’t worry, you can call me oppa.”

Jeongyeon gags, and Jimin laughs so much the conversation halts.

When Nayeon was recruited, she didn't come with relevant skills, like Jeongyeon's computer prowess or Momo's raw physical power. And she didn't have any special aptitude for the other skills they learned, either, not like Sana had instinctively understood all the tricks for grifting or Mina had taken to explosives like a dried-up sponge to water.

But Nayeon kept passing her tests, kept winning—she thrived—because she's always been built to work on a team. It's hard to be good at both leading and following, but she instinctively knows when she needs to give Jihyo more support or take over a B team herself, a born second in command. She doesn't have Jihyo's strategic mind, but her perspective floats high enough to keep an eye on all her girls, and she takes care of her own.

She thinks of her own differently than Jimin does—she has room for everyone who's suffering, and he clearly holds just a few people in an ironclad box—but she gets where he's coming from. She respects it, even if it's not exactly her way. And she's not going to kick a mark who's already down, but she's not upset that he did.

She finishes disheveling Sun’s disarrayed suit, unbuttoning his shirt and yanking off his pants. She uses his tie to bind his wrists to the headboard, making tight, messy knots. He’s going to wake up sick and bruised, so better to let him—or the police who find him, if the timing works out right—think it’s a partying thing.

She can’t do anything about the bruise on his head, but the one on his neck where the syringe went in needs to be masked. She uses her gloved fingers to turn his face to the side, takes a deep breath and holds it, and leans down to press a perfect, heart-shaped print of red lipstick into his clammy skin. One of the others makes a noise of disgust.

And it is disgusting, but it’s these details that sell a scene.

Nayeon stands and uses a tissue to wipe away the rest of her lipstick, along with the weird feeling on her lips. She drops the tissue in a plastic bag with the rest of the cleaning supplies and seals it up, and her kit goes back in Jeongyeon’s backpack. Jimin is the one watching her, thoughts inscrutable behind his pretty face. Jeongyeon’s working, focused.

There are sounds in the hall, a man’s low voice and a genderless laugh. Jimin’s head shoots up and he watches the door as whoever it is walks by.

Nayeon fixes her lipstick in the bedroom’s mirror, using a pencil to perfect the edges until Jeongyeon closes her laptop. “Never again,” she says to Jimin.

“You say that every time,” he says lightly. He wipes Sun’s phone clean of prints and drops it on the bed, out of Sun’s reach. “Should we go out together so that security guard sees the three of us?”

Jeongyeon makes a face as grossed out as Nayeon feels. But it's a good idea, actually—the guard will fill in a story about what they were doing up here and dismiss them from his memory. He'll make eye contact with Jimin to be impressed and not look at her or Jeongyeon at all. 

She gives Jeongyeon another of those regretful but resigned looks. "It's a good idea."

Jeongyeon looks appalled. "You really want to do that?"

It seems like a weird question. Want? Well, of course it's not what she _wants._ Nayeon’s been spinning lies and dropping red herrings all night, and standing in this room with Sun's labored breathing is worse than standing near a body, the spectacle she’s made of him. All at once, something feels off. Not in the room, which is perfect, she made it perfect, but in the moment of finding herself inside it.

She looks into Jeongyeon’s narrow, intelligent eyes and knows, even if she isn't going to say, how badly she's wanted Jeongyeon to ask her what she wants. But even if she could say it, this room, this whole pyrite-shiny party, wouldn’t be the place to ask for it.

Nayeon has left red lip prints at fake crime scenes all over the world, but she hasn’t had a real kiss in ages.

"I think it's safest," she says firmly. She's in charge.

"Come on, it'll be fun," Jimin says. "Let's give them a story to tell."

Jeongyeon sighs and leads the way into the hall again. Nayeon locks the door again before she closes it behind her, and she grabs Jimin's hand with one and Jeongyeon’s with the other, adding a tipsy sway to her walk as they pass the security guard again.

###

Maybe (definitely) Namjoon’s a big nerd, but his favorite parts of Jackson’s parties are always the end. As things start to empty out, people disappearing to hired cars or the bedrooms or one of the guesthouses on the grounds, the DJ switches the music to classic hip-hop and deep cuts, a cooler, chiller vibe, and the servers bring trays and trays of carby snacks out from the kitchen. Jackson is wearing wire kitty-cat ears and orange Naruto pajama pants with a gold medallion on a chain flopping against his bare chest, and he does passes of the room to swap stories from the night and say goodbyes.

Namjoon sits in the center of the couch eating soybean crackers in a slow, steady motion, like a zombie. Jungkook is curled into his shoulder—Namjoon keeps thinking he’s fallen asleep and then he grabs another cracker. 

Jin is on his other side, head knocked back against the sofa and definitely fully asleep. He’s beautiful all the time, but especially in repose. His sleeping face is unguarded and silly, with his wrinkled blue silk tie looped through his collar and the print of Namjoon’s teeth low enough that it would be hidden if he buttoned his shirt all the way up for work but high enough that it’s on display here, in the relative safety of Jackson’s private party.

Namjoon is floating on the buzz of being a little open, of touching Jin’s waist in a crowded room and not worrying about who saw. One day, this will not be a secret. They will tell the world and they will bear the consequences. 

It might hurt Jin’s acting career, which is the big reason they’re waiting now. It could hurt Namjoon’s career, too, but the only reason he went into politics was to work for justice. So he would find another way, with Jin at his side. It would be worth it.

One day, when they’re sure it's time, when they can do it right. Until then, they have to stay secret and safe, and Jimin is always doubling and redoubling security to protect them. He’s somewhere now, making sure the security Jackson hired for tonight was solid or something. It’s a lot to worry about. Still, it was nice to have tonight.

Park Jihyo and that big group of girls she runs with are getting gathered together in a corner. (Namjoon only knows them by reputation. He tried to get Jihyo to work on one of his campaigns—she’s supposed to be very good—but Jimin said he didn’t think she’d be interested. A shame, really.) They make their way to Jackson at the door.

“Oh, here they are!” Jackson says, newly delighted. “My little tiny friends! Let me get on down there.”

He makes a show of hunkering low to hug Dahyun and Chaeyoung, who laugh sweetly and kiss his cheeks in stereo. Namjoon is just wondering where Jimin is, so he can give Jackson a very different hug and then go home, too, when Jimin appears in front of him. 

“What’s wrong with him?” Jimin asks, squinting at Jungkook’s face. He’s a little red and puffy.

“Happy tears,” Namjoon said. “He was talking to Yugyeom and Bambam about friendship, and I think he got a little overwhelmed.” 

Namjoon can’t hide the amusement in his voice, and Jimin laughs.

“Just because you’re all too horny to have friends,” Jungkook says, pouty. So he’s awake, after all.

“Should we get these babies home?” Namjoon asks, and Jimin gives him a warm look laced with a loving condescension that Namjoon chooses not to acknowledge or investigate. He gets Jin half-awake and gently up as Jimin bullies Jungkook to his feet. 

Jihyo’s girls are just finishing their goodbyes as Namjoon’s sleepy group makes it to the door. Jackson pulls Jihyo into a hug last. “Hey, did you find Sun Kwangjo? I invited him like you asked.”

“I did, thank you _ so _ much,” she says.

“Cool.” Jackson makes a sour face. “That guy’s kind of an asshole, you know.”

“Mm.” Jihyo starts walking away. “Speaking of that, honey, if the police get in touch with you to ask any questions about him, will you remember to call me first?” 

“The _ what—” _Jackson starts to say, and Namjoon leans in to listen too, but suddenly Jungkook goes flying out of Jimin’s arms and Namjoon has to let Jin go to stop him from falling. Jin stumbles into Jackson, who swerves to catch him.

By the time they get everyone righted, Jimin berating Jungkook for stumbling around while Jungkook whines that Jimin pushed him, Jihyo and the girls are gone, and whatever question Namjoon meant to ask has disappeared from his sleepy mind. 

###

Jihyo and Nayeon are watching news coverage of Sun’s trial on the couch, Jihyo typing a report to HQ on her phone, when the doorbell rings. Nayeon squints at the monitor across the room. “It’s a delivery guy,” she shouts. “Anyone expecting a package?”

Sana comes squealing down the stairs and around to the door, but after a few minutes, she appears with a closed box and a pout. “Jeongyeon,” she calls up the stairs. “It’s for you.”

The news story ends on a shot of Sun’s face looking pleasantly distraught, and Jihyo clicks the TV off and sends her email. Another success. 

Jeongyeon comes down slowly and turns the box Sana gives her over in her hands a few times, suspicious. By the time she’s ready to open it, most of the girls have gathered in the living room or on the stairs.

Inside the delivery package is a velvet jewelry box, and inside that is the loveliest necklace Jihyo has ever seen, a rose gold panther with emerald eyes on a choker-length chain. Rather inexplicably, Jeongyeon glares at it, and Nayeon sighs.

Jeongyeon doesn’t move, so Sana is the one who gasps in excitement and starts digging for a card out of the package. Tzuyu reaches for the necklace, stealing the excuse to caress it lovingly as she attaches it around Jeongyeon’s neck. 

“Oooh,” Sana says. “Jeongyeon, who’s _ oppa?” _

Jeongyeon turns her glower to Nayeon who, after a second’s hesitation, breaks down in giggles. She hides them behind her hand, but she either can’t resist or isn’t really trying that hard. 

Jeongyeon screams in something that sounds very like agony as she turns and stalks up the stairs past all the questioning girls, hard-edged like that golden panther around her neck.

“We’ll get him next time!” Nayeon calls up after her, still giggling.

“Next time,” Jeongyeon shouts back. “That’s a promise.”

**Author's Note:**

> [twitter](https://www.twitter.com/ninamonday) | [cc](https://curiouscat.me/ninamonday) | thank you!


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